after dinner sneeze

t says: A while ago, I skewered Garces Trading Company a bit for their somewhat mediocre scones.  Obviously, they were unhappy with my/our comments and struck back with a new breakfast pastry creation (n.b. sarcasm – we know that only approximately ten people read this blog … and 8 are related to us).  So what is it?  Well, it’s almost like someone at GTC read our blog and noted the absurd number of posts dealing with bacon, including those in which bacon was coupled with sweets like ice cream or chocolate chip cookies.  So here we go with the new [to us – it’s possible they’ve had this for a while] variant of a cinnamon roll:

Bacon Maple Roll

Ok.  Take a cinnamon roll, but replace the cinnamon with maple and bacon.  Now, I will admit that I was skeptical at first read the sign and laid my eyes on this beauty.  Just because you sprinkle bacon on top of something doesn’t make it super-awesome.  It makes it better, but not necessarily super-awesome.  In my humble opinion, a breakfast pastry’s success depends first and foremost on the execution of the dough …  yea, it was perfect.  The bread was gloriously soft; it was actually difficult to do the above picture because I wanted to grab it securely without crushing it, but it was so soft that it kept drooping in the middle.  Note – it was soft, but not the least bit mushy.  The bacon was delicious, cut into appropriately sized pieces with just the right balance of crisp-ness and give.  From what I recall, bacon was not studded in the bread, itself, which would have been interesting, however, there was plenty of bacon on top to make up for it.  Finally, the icing had a beautifully pasty feel (i.e. instead of a watery glaze or a too-thick fudge), and there was enough of it so that if you got one bite, the amount of glaze on top would distribute and coat the rest of the pastry in your mouth.  j and kp, I’m sorry you missed it.

Well played, Jose.  Well played, indeed.

EDIT:  A reader commented below that the above bacon delight was put forth by pastry sous chef, Ms. Rafalski.  While I have no absolute proof of this, I’m more than happy to credit her with the tears of joy I cried that morning.  It was a great start to a fabulous day (we went to Talula’s Table for dinner that same night … details forthcoming …).